Recipes, menus and everything to do with my not so new kitchen

The humble tomato

My biggest pet peeve is seeing a raw tomato on a menu when it is clearly not in season. Tomatoes not in season are mealy, have little taste and just plain old bad. Why, why, why would you do it? Having said that, one of my most favourites is the Insalata Caprese. Our new hot spot restaurant in Toronto (Bar Mercurio) has by far, one of the best Insalata Caprese I have ever tasted and I am not kidding. And this salad is consistently amazing, whether the humble tomato is in season or not! Dare I share their secret?

Oven Roasted Tomatoes. There I said it. Slow roasting your sliced tomatoes over a long period of time will bring out the sugars and caramelize this lovely fruit to a point where it really doesn’t matter what it tastes like raw! Paired with some fresh buffalo mozzarella, fresh basil, a little spicy arugula and drizzled with EVOO and good quality aged balsamic…well, I have died and gone to heaven!

Oven Roasted Tomatoes

Ingredients:

5-8 medium Roma tomatoes, washed and sliced about 1cm thick

sea salt to taste

paper towel to dry off tomatoes

non-stock spray, such as Pam

cookie sheet with a cooling rack installed on it so there is about 1 cm to 2cm between it and the cookie sheet

parchment paper

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 200°F

Line the cookie sheet with parchment.

Install the cooling rack onto the cookie sheet.

Spray the cooling rack with the non-stick spray.

Dry each tomato slice, both sides.

Place the tomato slices on the rack so that they are not touching.

Sprinkle with a little sea salt.

Bake for 3-4 hours or until the edges become caramelized. You may wish to flip the tomatoes half way during the baking period.

9 Responses

[…] of you who have been on this journey with kitcheninspirations will recall that I posted a rant and a solution about unseasonal tomatoes a few years ago (4 to be exact) and todays post is about a great use for those oven-dried tomatoes. […]

I agree with you completely – give me great tomatoes, or NO tomatoes! I was lucky enough to live in Italy for several years and love caprese salad! What a lovely idea to slow-roast the tomatoes!

I am an enthusiastic home-cook with doctors orders to lose weight….so I started blogging about it (my first week). Please come check it out, enjoy the recipes and maybe subscribe! Any tips or hints would appreciated – your blog is beautiful!

I did – and I agree with all of them. I know exactly what I need to do….it was a matter of inspiration and accountability that could only come from inside. Doing a blog gave that to me! Have a great day!